What Could-Should-Maybe Have Been
by Konstantinsen
Summary: Dipper and Mabel fiddle with a contraption that one of Grunkle Ford's "friends" left behind. They're old enough to comprehend it. Or maybe not.


It looked like a cross between a virtual reality headset and a memory gun. There was a dial on the right side while an antenna protruded above the left.

"Where'd you find it?" Dipper asked.

"A friend of ours," Ford said.

Dipper could hear the apprehension in his voice but he had grown up old enough to bottle his suspicions. The sixteen-year-old held up the device. "You mean that crazy old coot in the lab coat?"

Ford scratched the back of his head. There seemed to be no way around his nephew's astuteness. "Rick is...eccentric. More than most I've known."

"He was really rude," Mabel added. "But his grandson was okay."

Dipper put the headset back on the table, next to his breakfast. Four summers spent in Gravity Falls and this was nothing new. Though it was a bit overwhelming when it came to befriending the two surprise visitors who had a supercool spaceship built out of scrap. It even had an arsenal of weapons that ranged from rocket-launchers to razor-sharp claws.

"Mabel, you say that about every guy you meet," Dipper sniggered.

His twin knocked her hair back with a bit of mock pride. "Just so you know, my dear brother," she said in a campy high-class accent, "I prefer my suitors with class."

"Class?" Stan interjected, a carton of last night's milk in hand, "the kid was all high-strung."

"Fidgety, too," Dipper added.

"I think Morty is a bit addled by the trip," Ford reasoned. "We ran into each other more often than not and I can say that he can hold himself well for a youth his age."

Stan nearly choked on his milk. "He's like, what, fifteen?"

"We were twelve when, y'know."

"Yeah, yeah, I get your point."

Dipper heard something click. His eyes went wide as saucers when Mabel slapped on the headset. She backed away just in time to avoid her brother flying across the dining table trying to grab the visor.

"Whoa, this cool," she said.

"Mabel! That thing could be dangerous!" Dipper hollered, a couple of scrambled eggs scattered across his shirt.

"That thing is on," Stan observed, calmly striding over to see the red blinking light flashing until it turned green. A high-pitched frequency echoed from the visor until it was no longer audible, leaving Ford to correctly guess that Mabel had safely turned it on.

"Dipper, I think she's fine," he said to his very nervous nephew. "Let's try to observe how this works."

"I thought you knew how it works," Dipper countered.

"Rick doesn't like showing off his inventions," Stan said with another sip off the carton. "He's a prude, too."

Mabel began stretching her hands outward. Her grin stretched from ear to ear and Dipper momentarily felt grateful that she had her retainers removed else she might inadvertently blind them with the morning sun. "Guys! I can see you guys! But it's like an alternate-dimension-thingy."

"An alternate-dimension..." Ford trailed off. Was this that simulator that Rick once mentioned? The one that scanned the user's retinas to track their DNA in other dimensions? He had been in another dimension so he knew that it was possible other versions of himself could exist. Was it then a real possibility?

"Hey! I'm much older now. We're back in Piedmont and I'm... I'm..." In an instant, the joy on Mabel's grin transformed into confusion then revulsion. She screamed and yanked herself free of the damning device.

Dipper caught it and but the screen went black before he could even glimpse at what his twin saw. Judging by the look on her face though, it might be something he would rather not see. "You okay, Mabel?"

She hugged her knees and whimpered. "No, no, no, no. Don't talk to me. Don't talk to me."

"Geez, didn't know that was a personality-changer," Stan remarked. He gestured to his grand-nephew. "Put it on. I want to see what it does to you, now."

"Grunkle Stan!"

"Dipper," Ford interjected. "let's at least try it. I think I may know what it does. If I recall correctly..."

Dipper looked between his two great uncles. They couldn't be serious. Mabel was there in the corner, clearly traumatized, and they want him to experience the same jarring—

"For science," Stan added with a poorly confident grin.

The teen sighed. He put on the device and adjusted the dial until he could see himself as a successful researcher. "Whoa..."

Every dream he had growing up was displayed in front of him, in this virtual simulation of what could have been if he had made different choices.

"This is... whoa..."

"Don't go to C-239," Mabel sprouted. She leaped to her feet and with frenzy shook her brother's arms. "Don't go to C-239!"

"C-239?" Dipper could see some numbers in the corner of his vision. Part of the user interface, he guessed. _Reality: C-178_ , it said. Mabel's plea somehow didn't register correctly and he ended up turning the dial, flicking through random scenarios which by now made sense to him. These were alternate realities. Possibilities of what could have been and what could have not.

He didn't get to C-239 but he finally took notice of C-144...

The device nearly hit the floor had Stan not caught it. It looked like a big money-maker. Behind him, Ford was consoling the younger Pine twins who were now huddled in their own fetal comfort zones. He was curious to know what exactly was so disturbing about the realities of C-239 and C-144 (and was also wondering what number was their own reality) so he had to ask.

The most he could get out of them, unfortunately, were mumbled warnings. In addition, Dipper and Mabel downright refused to look at each other for most of the day until Wendy, Soos, and Melody had to talk them out of it over a modest campfire dinner at a glen not far from the Shack.

* * *

The next morning, Stan and Ford found Dipper and Mabel frozen by the doorway into the living room. The device was there on top of the TV. It looked like it was waiting to get hooked to a much larger monitor to enhance whatever pleasure there was in viewing what should not be.

"Um, move?" Stan groused.

The teenage twins budged. By a bit. They wouldn't go near it. Ford squeezed through. This aversion was interesting but it was also getting ridiculous.

"Why not?" he said, slapping it over his head and turning it on.

"No!"

"Don't do it!"

"Relax, kids. He'll be fine."

Ford found himself in C-239. He was fatter, though. Around him were the skeletal remains of some of the oddest mythological creatures outside of Gravity Falls. Walking around the hall of this odd museum, he ended up pushing open one of the unlocked doors to what he thought was another wider hall of exhibits.

Instead, he found his great niece and nephew floating above the ground, shimmering in wisps of blue light. He made to reach out for them but they only released some kind of barrier that made him fall back onto his rear. They were dressed oddly, too. Only when he looked up to see that this museum was more of a massive carnival tent decorated with bones of monsters.

The spectacle he was witnessing above him only proved to him one alternate possibility: if it wasn't Gideon Gleeful, it was Dipper and Mabel. Show kids who dabbled with the dark arts, making deals with _him_ , and terrorizing—was that Gideon peaking behind a bust of Caesar? With that blonde Pacifica girl?

They looked terrified. And dressed like his own Dipper and Mabel while the Dipper and Mabel floating above him reminded him of those roving miracle preachers who prowled the plains of the Midwest. Only this time, they had those wicked grins on their faces and magic of untold power...

The headset came off. Stan looked at his brother with an expectant grin. "Well? Is this going to rake in some good bucks?"

The look in Ford's eyes were more controlled compared to the younger Pines twins but the discomfort was there. "Uh, I feel slightly enlightened."

"So you found the reality where these two idiots aren't related, huh?" Rick's voice boomed into his ear.

The Pines family recoiled behind Stan's yellow chair. "Rick! How did you—"

Rick burped. The front door was wide agape and his grandson Morty was standing expectantly by the doorpost, looking nervously inside. "I have my ways. Now can I please have those goggles back." After a moment passed with them staring at him, he grunted, "Please."

Ford released the headset. "Um, you dropped it."

"I know. I forgot I dropped it here out of all places. Ah, well." The smile on Rick's face was a little too malevolent. "Be careful when playing with toys you can't comprehend, kids."

"Why'd you make that, anyway?" Dipper whined.

"You destroyed everything!" Mabel shrieked.

"Relax, relax. Wasn't my fault you narcissistically obsessed over your alternate selves."

"I saw myself bleeding! I was holding my own intestines with my bare hands!" Dipper managed to keep himself from hyperventilating but he couldn't stop ranting. "And Mabel was all...gah! I...I killed her! I killed Wendy, I killed Soos, I, I..."

"I was making out with Dipper!"

Every other Pines twin turned their heads. "Wait, what?"

Sudden haughty laughter. "Oh! Incest! Ha-ha! That's gold."

"What are you celebrating about, Rick?" Ford snapped. "You're into this stuff?"

Rick was still sporting that sinister grin of his. He still didn't wipe the spittle drooping down his chin. "Nope but it's hilarious when it's someone you're not related to, hah! Probably a reality where the two of you aren't siblings; you just look alike."

"Just, stop!" Mabel stomped to the stairwell. "You guys are messed up! I'm sorry, Dipper. I can't look at you today."

Dipper only stood in silence, his jaw agape. Needless to say, he couldn't look at her either after hearing _that_. Mabel never mentioned that last night at the campfire. Perhaps it was time to go find that memory gun. Meanwhile, Rick continued to snicker with amusement as he sauntered towards the door.

Ford shook him on the shoulder. "Rick, just asking, what reality are you from and what reality is this?"

"One too many questions, Ford. I'm out of here."

Morty stood with folded arms in front of the driver's side to Rick's rickety old space ship parked next to the Shack's shabby golf cart.

Rick groused. "C-137, Ford. I'm from C-137. And I don't know what reality this is. I don't even remember. Now, get out of the way, Morty!"

* * *

"You know, Rick, I think you should be more careful with your gadgets," Morty said. Rick's rickety space ship shook a bit but he was used to it. The woodlands of Oregon continued to stretch on below them.

"Look, Morty, it's not my fau- _uurgh_ -lt that they got their hands on the alternate-reality headset."

"You dropped it when they tried to kick you out."

"Ford owes me and Stan, too."

"But the twins? Them seeing that? That's, that's just as bad!"

"Oh, now you want to see an alternate-reality where you're making out with Summer?"

Morty flailed his arms so hard that it shook the ship for a bit. "Ew! Gross! What the hell, Rick!?"

"I'm just saying it's a possibility. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if I put that on and saw a version of myself molesting a version of yourse—I should stop, that's disgusting." Rick thrust the stick shift into eighth and then ninth gear before speeding into hyperspace.

* * *

 **ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 10, 2017**

 **LAST EDITED: February 10, 2017**

* * *

 **NOTE: I need to get some sleep. Sleep deprivation is bad but I had to write this down. I have to. After binging both seasons of _Gravity Falls_ and _Rick and Morty_ , I just had to. I need some sleep. I'll edit this later. Maybe.**

 **Um, let me know if some of the characters are out of character. I think some of them are.**


End file.
